Real or fake? It’s hard to tell anymore

FILE - In this March 31, 2009 file photo, actors from "The West Wing" from left, Richard Schiff, Martin Sheen, and Bradley Whitford prepare to speak on Capitol Hill in Washington during an event supporting the "Faces of the Employee Free Choice Act," campaign. For seven years, from 1999 to 2006, the NBC drama The West Wing showed America the inner workings of President Josiah Bartlet's made-up White House. Re-watching its episodes today, it's difficult to ignore the parallels between the fiction of then and the reality of today. Since the show ended, the line between the authentic and the packaged in Washington seems to have grown increasingly fuzzy, not just in our politics but now, also, in governing itself. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)

For seven years, from 1999 to 2006, the NBC drama “The West Wing” showed America the inner workings of President Josiah Bartlet’s made-up White House. Re-watching its episodes today, it’s difficult to ignore the parallels between the fiction of then and the reality of today. Since the show ended, the line between the authentic and the packaged in Washington seems to have grown increasingly fuzzy, not just in our politics but now, also, in governing itself.

Exhibit A: the gun debate

Shortly after the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shootings, Obama put on his nation’s comforter hat and quickly made a public show of tapping Vice President Joe Biden to come up with a White House proposal for addressing a recent spate of fatal mass shootings. The vice president predictably convened representatives from every group with a stake in the issue.

And Democrats and Republicans — and their respective special interest allies — dug in. The left pushed limits on guns, the right resisted, and Washington insiders started murmuring about the unlikelihood that a comprehensive measure would ever reach Obama’s desk.

Precisely as expected.

Exhibit B: Fiscal crisis

Fiscal crises also have been going according to script. Every few months, the country faces a looming fiscal deadline — tax cuts are set to expire, or the nation’s debt limit needs to be raised, or automatic spending cuts are to take effect.

Act 1 has both Democrats and Republicans calling for compromise and talking of grand bargains. Act 2 finds them digging in on their opposite ideological positions of taxes, spending and government’s size, beholden to their bases. Act 3 ends up being both sides leaving the negotiating table and posturing publicly for maximum exposure. Act 4, the finale, is a furious behind-the-scenes wrangling by a select few that results in a narrow-scope late-night deal reached just before the deadline passes.

In “Shutdown” — a 2003 episode of the show created by unabashed liberal Aaron Sorkin — Bartlet refuses to compromise with the Republican House speaker over budget cuts the GOP is demanding as a fiscal crisis looms, and declares, “I am the president of the United States, and I will leave the government shut down until we come to an equitable agreement.”

Will we hear similar from Obama next month if — as expected — House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, demands significant spending cuts as a part of legislation to fund federal agencies beyond March 27 and avert a government shutdown? Maybe so.

Exhibit C: Gay rights

On gay rights, two moments — one fake, one real — are striking in their similarities.

In “The West Wing” episode “20 Hours in L.A.,” which aired first in 2000, Bartlet is running for re-election when he dresses down a Hollywood producer demanding he publicly advocate for more gay rights. Bartlet thunders, “Right now, right this second, the worst thing that could possibly happen to gay rights in this country is for me to put that thing on the debating table, which happens the minute I open my mouth!”

Fast forward to the real 2012. Obama was seeking a second term when he announced he supported gay marriage, bowing to pressure from gays — including many in Hollywood — and disclosing his stance far earlier than planned after Biden pre-empted him. Obama said then: “I didn’t want to nationalize the issue. There’s a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized.”

These days, a level of governing uninfluenced by stereotypes sounds as refreshing as it does impossible.

That is, unless our leaders start putting what’s right for the country over what’s expected by their most vocal backers, and unless we, the general public, stop holding them hostage with fantastical notions of how they should behave.

We’re talking about a fundamental shift. And that won’t happen overnight.

But the potential payoff is huge. If the pressure to adhere to the script ebbs, that clears the way for more real problem-solving. Not to mention the ability to look at shows like “The West Wing” and say, with confidence: This is entertaining, but it’s nothing like the real thing.